Every year I pick a song to start off my soundtrack for the year. Usually, it’s an upbeat song, one that relates to my word of the year or what I want to remember as I go through the months. It’s a song that I use to help remind me of my purpose. (Check out the 2017 Soundtrack page in your Self Love Workbook!)

Over the years, here are the songs I’ve chosen.

2016: Instructions for a Bad Day by Shane Koyczan

There will be bad days, Times when the world weighs on you for so long it leaves you looking for an easy way out.
There will be moments when the drought of joy seems unending. Instances spent pretending that everything is alright when it clearly is not, check your blind spot.

See that love is still there, be patient.

2015: Secrets by Mary Lambert

They tell us from the time we’re young
To hide the things that we don’t like about ourselves
Inside ourselves
I know I’m not the only one who spent so long attempting to be someone else
Well I’m over it

2014: I Am Light by India.Arie

I am divinity defined
And I am the God on the inside
I am a star, a piece of it all
I am light

(Love these songs)

2013: Spotlight by Patrick Stump

You could be your own spotlight
Ayoh, ayoh, you could be the star, you can shine so bright,
You could be your own spotlight

2012: Firework by Katy Perry

You don’t have to feel like a wasted space
You’re original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow

2011: Heather Small’s Proud

What have you done today to make you feel proud?
It’s never too late to try
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
You could be so many people
If you make that break for freedom
What have you done today to make you feel proud?

My song for 2017 is Third Eye by Florence and the Machine.

Over the summer I fell in love with Florence and the Machine’s How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album and the music video that went along with it. The video, aptly named the Odyssey, is a musical and visual retelling of a tumultuous relationship that she likens to a car crash. It starts off with the song called What Kind of Man and through the video it follows the highs and lows of the relationship.

There are several songs throughout the video and the song Third Eye is the last one. It represents Florence finally finding her feet again, being able to stand on her own, while also realizing her true worth.

We all have issues seeing our true worth sometimes, don’t we?

I sometimes get so tangled up in my feelings, emotions, anxiety, and depression that it’s all I can see. It feels like this bubble closing in on me with no end in sight. I get tricked into believing it – that it will never end.

Which causes me to slink into the shadows and draw within on myself. Third Eye reminds me not to. It reminds me to look up. After the year I had last year, I need the reminder.

Hey, look up
Don’t make a shadow of yourself
Always shutting out the light
Caught in your own creation
Look up, look up
It tore you open
And oh, how much?

Hey, look up

You don’t have to be a ghost
Hidden amongst the living
You are flesh and blood
You deserve to be loved
And you deserve what you are given
And oh, how much?

I choose to embrace hope and to embrace my own worthiness.

What’s your song this year and why?